


A battle of wits.  And fists.  And crowbars, and the odd chainsaw.  You know what, let's just call it a battle.

by Ikol_Ichigorath



Series: Conspiracy and Shadowplay [2]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Other, Roman's hunting on Ozpin's orders, potential trigger warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 21:35:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10862550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ikol_Ichigorath/pseuds/Ikol_Ichigorath





	A battle of wits.  And fists.  And crowbars, and the odd chainsaw.  You know what, let's just call it a battle.

A dull ache throbbed through his skull. It was the first thing Roman noticed when he came to, followed by the discovery that he was in a bright, stone-walled room. He tried to move his hands up to touch his head, but something bit into his wrists. Confusion settled for a brief moment, before the memory of what happened came back. Heh. Maybe not his brightest plan.

A machine revved behind him, metallic crunching and grinding echoing about the room before it settled into a loud, abrasive noise.

"Ready to die?" a low voice asked, as a huge chainsaw was placed in front of his face. The blades moved too fast to be seen, but he could feel the air displaced by them on his skin.

"Talk about dramatic," Roman sighed and rolled his eyes. "If you wanted me dead, you wouldn't have me tied to a chair… nor would you wait for me to wake up."

"Hah," the man stepped in front of him, huge and burly with a Grimm tattoo swirling across the left half of his face. He hefted the chainsaw in one hand, as though it weighed nothing to him. "Are you so sure of that, human? Willing to bet your life on it?"

  
A quick probe found him Aura-less. Though given his stature and stance, was probably at least competent in combat.

"Yes."

The faunus paused at his casual response. He growled and spat to the side, and even raised the chainsaw above his head, as though to bring it crashing down on the huntsman.

Roman huffed and raised a single eyebrow, unafraid. Even if the man did it, he could just mist himself about the blades. Replacing the clothes would be annoying, he was wearing his favourite ascot. But really, there was nothing to be remotely scared of.

The faunus huffed and lowered his arm. The chainsaw came to a grinding halt.

"I told you he wouldn't be afraid, Damien," a far more familiar voice oozed. "There's a few screws loose in the kid's brain." Byzant emphasised the point by grabbing Roman's head between his hands and shaking it.

It hurt more than he expected it to, indicating some kind of lingering injury as he watched the flamboyant criminal stroll in front of him. Great… he'd been captured by the right people then. And apparently Byzant was arrogant enough to handle the torture personally. He wasn't sure if that was good or bad, even if it put him closer to his goal. Will he try to keep me prisoner? Will he try to kill me immediately after the first ‘session’? I could just kill everyone and scour the base on my own time, but there might not be any evidence of Salem’s involvement. I need to interrogate Byzant.

"Well, well, well," The man in question drawled, "Can't say I expected to see you again, kid."

"Maybe you haven’t…" Roman grumbled, playing for defiant more than anything else. "Maybe I'm a figment of your imagination."

"If so," Byzant growled, his hands coming down to grip the armrests of the chair, "then my imagination is about to become a very twisted place."

"Oooh," Roman rolled his eyes, "spooky." He made sure to keep his expression bored, even if his thoughts were racing at a mile a minute. Byzant was spending time taunting him when he could have been doing other things. Did he just enjoy hurting people? It couldn’t be ruled out. But maybe he wasn’t as high up in the Black Circle as he made himself seem.

"You're a regular comedian," the mobster sighed and pushed pack. "I have to say, after that sweet, little love letter I got from your boss, I was under the impression we were going to avoid one another. What do you call this?"

"An unrelated accident. How was I supposed to know you'd be in ‘Thousand Homes of all places? I thought you had class, Byzant. When did you turn to grave robbing?"

Byzant started to chuckle. He stood up straight and turned away, building up into an all-out laugh. When it reached a crescendo, he spun back and slugged Roman in the jaw.

The blow made his head crack back, vision blurring as agony seared across his face. He toppled to the side and fell, shoulder crashing against the stone floor. "Okay," he coughed, "I can see you're in a bad mood."

"Very astute of you, kid. I am in a bad mood. Do you know why?" The dead man leaned down to grip the chair and sit him back up. "I'm pissed, quite justifiably, I think, because a certain brat saw fit to come and interrupt my plans, again. Now tell me, is there a reason I shouldn't kill you right here and now?"

Roman smiled sardonically. "My dashing good looks?"

He received another blow for that, even if Byzant's foot caught his chair and stopped it from falling over once more. Roman’s head swayed. Gods, he was glad Summer would never have to put up with this. Then again, she probably would have taken a smarter approach than getting herself kidnapped.

It was a relief… he didn't want to imagine Summer… Any of his friends, really, in so much pain.

"Try again." Byzant hissed.

"You want my secret," Roman said, "You want to know…"

"Yes?"

"It's…" Roman forced himself to look into the other man's eyes. "Every card you see with a value greater than seven is a plus one," he grinned, "and everything less is a minus one. If the total is more than zero, raise. That's the secret of how I win so many games of pok-ugh!" Roman grit his teeth together as Byzant slipped a crowbar between his arm and the chair, using it like a lever. It forced his left arm at an unnatural angle, making it feel like the bone would pop out of its socket. Sweat beaded on his brow but he refused to make a single noise.

He wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

"I know there's more of you," Byzant began, slowly, "You wouldn't be out here alone, even if you are crazy enough to consider it. How many of you are there?"

"Millions," he grit out. There weren’t. It was just him.

Byzant growled and pulled the crowbar out. Roman breathed a sigh of relief for barely a second, before the man took the tool in two hands and swung it like a bat.

Pain exploded through his shoulder. The force was enough to knock him over, and this time the other man made no effort to stop it. The chair hit stone, his head cracked against it a second later. Roman gasped for breath, but it became ragged when Byzant’s foot hit him in the stomach, driving it from his lungs. The metal bar came down another time, on his ribs and chest, and he instinctively tried to curl into a ball, only to find he couldn't. Every time it hit, his body shook, and the bindings around his wrist cut deeper and deeper.

He forced his eyes shut and grit his teeth.

"You think you're so funny," Byzant yelled, lifting his crowbar up and down with an almost rhythmic fury. "You huntsman think you're such heroes. You're not and this isn't a game. You mess up in this life and you die!"

Roman couldn't help it; he started to laugh. Even as his body was wracked with pain, he laughed and laughed. It angered his attacker even more, but that didn't stop him – nor did the heavier blows that rained down upon his body.

"You're mad," Byzant gasped a few seconds later. The crook staggered back, red in the face. Sweat dribbled down his brow and he panted for breath. "You're actually insane, aren't you?"

One jade eye cracked open. The other was swollen shut, the after effects of the beating having already taken hold. "Insane?" he whispered. A wild gamble that just might pay off. "I'm not the person working for a mad woman. She'll kill you, Byzant. You're going to die.”

Suppressing his Aura was difficult. Stopping it from healing his wounds more mentally taxing than just letting his body do its thing would have been. His head swam as he took great gulps of air. The pain was an ever-present reminder, but it didn't affect him like it once might have. What was this compared to the times he'd been tortured before? Byzant was an amateur compared to De’lacour. De’lacour was an amateur compared to the last of Salem’s operatives he’d sniffed out and slain.

He'd felt the flesh burned from his own body, for crying out loud. What was this compared to that?

"What do you know of her?" Byzant growled, kneeling down and clutching Roman’s cheeks in his hands. "How did you know about all of this?"

Torture lost its use once the victim accepted their situation. For someone who was in perfect control of it, the effort had been wasted from the start. Roman spat a mouthful of blood into the man's face. "Nice try, Byzant," he said. "I'll give you a six out of ten, but only for effort."

"I will kill you," Byzant’s empty threat rolled over him, barely heard. "Do you honestly think I won't do it?"

"Join the queue." Roman laughed. He’d found his target, time to get to work.

"Ugh, what a waste of time," Byzant sighed. "What do you think, want to kill him?" The question was directed to the Grimm-faced Faunus, still hovering in the corner of the room. As were Byzant’s eyes. Meaning that he missed Roman’s hand turning to green mist, sliding out of the bindings, snatching up the rusted, bloodied crowbar and jamming the end of it into Byzant’s throat, causing the cartlidge of Salem’s servant to fold back on itself. What had once been a cylindrical tube now turned into two parallel and very, very close together semicircles.

The chair skittered back, but Byzant was sent tumbling from his haunches, gasping and clasping at his throat. A heavy step and the ratcheting revving sound of the chainsaw starting up again served an unnecessary reminder of the other occupant of the room. Roman’s entire form dissolved, a wave of green gas rushing from the chair to fill the room; spiralling and sucking into corners before forming a momentary hurricane directly to the Faunus’ rear.

Fighting naked wasn’t as much of a problem as most people made it out to be. Sure, it was embarrassing and, depending on the surroundings; gross. But if you ignored that, for people that didn’t wear much armour, there was hardly any difference.

Roman’s foot crashed into the back of the Faunus’ knee, toes angled outwards as he stepped through the limb, one hand biting into a nerve cluster at the immense man’s opposite elbow, the other snaking across the man’s throat.

Both knees crashed to the ground an instant before the chainsaw followed. Roman folded the man back, the leading arm continuing to slide until he had the man’s throat pressed against his armpit whilst holding the back of his head with the same hand. A few seconds worth of pressure and what face wasn’t hidden by ink was purple with exertion and lack of oxygen. A knife hand strike to that sweet spot just below the sternum and between the point where the ribcage separated doubled the Faunus’ desperate thrashing. Three more and the thrashing had stopped entirely. Roman held on for a few seconds more, observing his purple faced and choking target before dropping the unconscious Faunus to the stone floor of the room.

Bare feet slapping against the stone floor, Roman strode back to his chair, righted it, untied the dozen or so ropes now slackly looped about the wooden frame and his empty clothes. Keeping a calm eye on the panicked choking form of Byzant as he dressed himself to the tune of his targets fruitless wheezing.

A smirk settled into the Hunter’s features. Cruel and vindictive. “I take back what I said earlier.” Byzant’s panicked, blue-blue eyes latched onto Roman’s jade orbs, and then shifted to the rusted crowbar hanging from his right hand. “Salem isn’t going to kill you.”

Roman stepped across the room, dark shoes making a brilliant clacking noise against the harsh white stone of the floor.

Byzant scrambled away, but had managed barely a metre before Roman’s fingers had reached his throat. Terror was apparent in the blue eyes as Roman’s fingers almost deftly squeezed the edges of the man’s windpipe. A wet pop sounded and Byzant gasped as his windpipe opened again. Before doubling over when Roman drove the sharp head of the crowbar into his stomach, piercing Aura and flesh in a single movement.

A trickle of blood turned to a rush as Roman ripped the tool from the pathetic mobsters gut. The hand at his neck shoved. And Byzant tumbled, almost sailing into the wall before he slid to a groaning, bleeding stop. “She won’t get a chance.”

Byzant rushed, almost made it to his feet before the hooked end of the crowbar slammed into his temple. Shattering bone and sending fragments tearing through grey matter. Roman ripped the metal instrument out and swung it overhand, crashing through his targets cranium once more before stepping away from the fresh cadaver.

Jade eyes regarded the rusted crowbar for a few seconds.

Roman cleaned the blood and grey matter off on Byzant’s jacket before hooking it off of his belt and striding out of the torture chamber and into the main den of the Black Circle’s Mistral branch.

“Evening! Ladies and Gentlemen!” A few guards spun and stared in a combination of surprise and confusion. They bore similar Grimm markings as those of the now dead Faunus in the torture chamber. Roman settled into his stance, letting the crowbar spin once through the air before he caught it. “Time to die!”

 

 


End file.
